Posts #1016-1020: 15 May 2000

Post #1016, by loid

Randite tries to surpress the laughter, then pulls out the Dual Neutron Oscilating Laser and blasts several holes in his captors before fleeing to saturn valley.

(In other words, the answer is NO)

I really don't want to be a loid fanboy, but damn it, he's making it harder and harder for me to resist. I must confess I can't think of a much better way to handle Mog116's last couple posts than how loid just did. And notice how he continues to keep it brief. No effort wasted on expressing his disgust there.

Although... I cringe to do it, but I have to confess that this is pretty much the low-grammar edition of exactly how Tengu Man would have handled this situation. Stop forcing me to confront my prejudice!

Also, the 'Dual Neutron Oscillating Laser' sounds exactly like something Liyoshi would make up. Liyoshi posted the very next post, but not for 45 minutes after this one went up. I like to think he had a post ready, then read this one and exclaimed 'curse you for your brilliance, loid!' and hastily scrapped together something else.

---

Post #1017, by Little Yoshi

(Yay! someone remembered something as simple as the name of my boat!)

I also have to acknowledge that's impressive, as it means one would have had to have read a Liyoshi post. Actually it's even more than that; I have (grudgingly) read every word Liyoshi has written so far, and I didn't remember the name of his thrice-damned boat.

"WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED?!" Tim said, overly-concerned about the racket he heard in the middle of the night.
[Kiyo just*snicker*got away with*laugh* Pikachu's*snicker* sound stone.]
"What's so funny, where's Pikachu?" Tim demanded. He didn't mean to be rude to his friend, but he found this as no laughing matter.
[Sorry, I cast*snicker* PSI lol] mog explained.

I think Mog116 was quite clear about the (stupid) capitalization. PSI Lol.

"And Pikachu...?" Tim asked impatiently. Tim never was very patient, as Chris would tell you.

I don't know, you easily wore out all of our patience twice over with that hundreds-of-posts-long Randite/Mani-Mani/whatever-the-hell Battle of Endless Boredom.

[I'm...down...*gasp*]
Tim leapt into the water. Although not a very good swimmer, and he was very sesptical(sp?) to swimmer's ear, Tim looked for his friend.

I think the word he was looking for was 'susceptible'.

It didn't take long to find a yellow body in the water, since there weren't many other bright-colored things. He retrived it, and shot his heal beam at Pikachu several times, reviving him.
[Thanks] Pikachu said, once he was consious.
"Umm, guys, one problem. I only have lodging for 4, sooo, everyone can't spend the night here. Sorry." Tim said.

I remain curious as to how one dives into a body of water and manually pulls out a rat made of electricity without instantly, spectacularly and above all fatally electrocuting himself. But moving right along...

I can't quite tease all the way out why he invoked a Rule of Four here. If he wants to get rid of someone specific (Mog116, most likely) he would have to come up with a much better plan than that, and anyway this is IF and, as PSI322 has demonstrated numerous times, you can't get away from someone who is determined to follow you around. You'd think he'd welcome the popularity. So that explanation doesn't make any sense I can see.

Maybe he's trying to fend off Dark Ton­­® joining the party, but (a) loid already did that, and (b) again, even Liyoshi has to know that ploy isn't going to have a chance of working.

So I don't know. I'd be curious to know if there are any explanations besides 'Liyoshi is being a dick because he is a dick' that make sense.

[This message has been edited by Little Yoshi (edited 05-15-2000).]

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Post #1018, by Anthadd

"I've got PSI, it's just assist, though."
"Wonderful..."
Carbon Dog woke up, and leapt.
"Aaaa!" Anthadd cried, flying down and out of the Fire Springs.

AAAAA AAA AAA-AAAAAA AAAA AAAAA!

(Translation: 'Using his top-secret code again.')

"Anthadd!" Sir jumped down and ran after him.
Carbon Dog returned to his Shining Spot.

(Tengu: Since this is MY group, you will NOT be telling ME that I can't say THIS group was defeated, since I have a say in what happens to THIS group.)

I grant you that Anthadd is 100% correct, and I also grant you that it's so obvious what Anthadd must be responding to that you could pretty much write it out yourself; in short, Tengu must have recently written a post saying essentially, 'Um, Anthadd? We already defeated Carbon Dog, and Diamond Dog is my AC now so you can't do that.' I'm about 85% sure guruzeth deleted the Tengu Man post Anthadd is violently responding to here.

So you actually can mark this down as where the team guruzeth vs. Tengu Man Gathering War officially began.

---

Post #1019, by pogopunk

[yay, i have a way to enter the if again. whoopee, now back off, i'm reviving falcon 24. *snarl*]

Already been done, kiddo. Between this and some of his previous posts, it seems pogopunk was trying hard to endear himself to somebody semi-important.

after much dawdling, pogopunk finally satisfied his hunger and made his way to lumine hall, where he felt that everything would come back to him after his horrific battle with his self.

I honestly don't even remember what happened with his 'horrific' battle with himself, and I am honestly not interested enough to go refresh my memory. Let's move on.

grabbing a few (with few being a lot to others) royal iced teas and some bread rolls and croissants, he made his way back into the heart of eagleland to meet his fate.

after walking for about ten minutes, he became utterly tired and started pouting. "man, who knew walking could be sooo hard..bwarghh" he set out a towel and sipped some iced tea while resting up.

A bad mistake, really. Getting back up and resuming walking after that is going to be torture.

"hmm, any easier ways to get there.." "ah hah! i think i'll just uh, hmm, walk some more?" baffling himself, pogo got up and tiredly began walking again. admiring the wildlife he saw a monkey teleport away. "YESSSSSSSSSSS! i know how to teleport! whoo hoo! why working yourself when you got psychic powers?" chuckling, he revved up, gained up speed, and arrived near the hole to lumine hall.

I'm just as conflicted as I've been throughout these annotations about this. What's better, just to have godly AC superpowers and use them liberally with no explanation (which means no wasting of our time and precious internet bits)? Or to expend said time and precious internet bits to provide some background on why you have godly AC superpowers (and adding some flavor)? I don't know. I can find things to seriously dislike about both strategies. Basically it boils down to whether it entertains me or not. loid's stuff does. pogopunk's stuff doesn't. It just isn't interesting.

"gnarly!" he exclaimed, but he began to blush when a few tendas stared at him and his archaic language.

'Gnarly' is hardly an archaic word. 'Spoony', now that was an archaic word before Final Fantasy IV made it legendary.

"er, i mean, splendid.." dodging their glares, he jumped into the hole.

I can't help but wonder if he thesaurused 'gnarly' to come up with 'splendid'. His writing isn't bad in general, so it's possible he knew 'splendid' all on his own.

gaping, he stared at the magnificent glowing wall. it appeared to sparkle with a certain something, and slowly his thougths appeared on the wall. he let go of himself and let them unfold in front of him.

transfixed for a few hours, pogopunk finally got up, kicking a few fobbies away. "grr, get off of me!" he yelled, slamming one into the wall.

Aw, come on, man. We're supposed to be able to see your thoughts! That's the whole point!

a whole gang suddenly approached him, and pogo panicked. their eyes began to glow, and he felt nervous. quickly teleporting to outside tenda village, he gathered his thoughts. "when i teamed up with falcon..his sound sapper controlled a part of me, and i established a link with him. now i feel a bond with him, and i need to bring him back, although i dont know why" he began, recalling his thoughts. "must find way to revive him, and go from there..." uneasily pogopunk teleported to the site of falcon's demise, near lavos.

[falcon, hope i didnt mess things up for you, your turn to write..haha, try writing after mine and fail horribly!]

[This message has been edited by pogopunk (edited 05-15-2000).]

That reminds me, just how long has it been since pogopunk last posted any substance? Hold on, I'll go check...

OK, got it. His last post was #844, where he actually was in Summers and just about to set up for Lumine Hall. So score a point for continuity there. It seems to have pretty much been his intention to continue trying to ingratiate himself to Falcon24, and he's ignoring loid's insta-revival to follow through with it.

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Post #1020, by loid

Meahnwhile, inside Lavos

"Well um, master Lavos" said Randite "Everythings fine, just fine. I have the rodents sound stone. There's no problems."

Good to see the grammar-free loid is back to stay. I seriously suspect a different person was writing loid's posts during that spell when he suddenly became (and remained) a suspiciously competent writer.

"YOU LIE....I CAN SEE YOUR THOUGHTS"
"Well uh, there is this one thing, you see I controll this body only at night and I-"
"WHAT! Wait, this could be of use. Listen Randite, I want you to...."

Yeah, but if Lavos can see his underling's thoughts, what's the point in even talking to him? And since when does Lavos speak English at all, anyway?

[We have to get the sound stone back, Randite coul- RANDITE! YOU SCRAWNY LITTLE-]
"Pikachu! Cool it! AHH! Those thunderbolts hurt! I faught Randite in Magicant and I'm myself agian"
[And the sound stone?]
"Lavos got it."
[Oh well, Ton you break your sound stone in half.]

Wait, what? Why?

They all went to their rooms on the Yoshi except for Ra- I mean Kiyo (whoops) who had to camp outside with Pikachu due to lack of rooms.
"Heh, gulible little rodent."
[Did you say something Kiyo?]
"No, just thinking outloud."

loid appears to be taking the opportunity to express that he's not a big Pikachu3164 fan. At least that's my takeaway from this post.

And that concludes yet another page of the Gathering. Next time we'll get started on our next chunk of 40 posts, wherein Falcon24 officially makes his, er, glorious return, and some girls do some girl things. Page 6 is going to be a treat, as the guruzeth-Tengu Man bickering is going to really pick up steam.

Posts #1011-1015: 15 May 2012

Post #1011, by Pikachu3164

Hey... I've noticed quite a few things I want to point out that seem a bit wierd...

Brother, I've spent the past few years pointing out things that seem more than slightly weird by the truckload. Let's see if you have anything new to contribute.

Note 1 - ((Mog - You at the hotel waiting for someone to arrive so we can unite and ultimately defeat the Randites and Lavos.))

That's, uh... just what Mog116 said in the very last post. What's weird about this? I'm sorry; wierd.

Note 2 - ((I've noticed that no one here seems to be in the same time period. Guru, Tracy, Poo, PSI, and Chris have all expierienced nightfall, but for some reason, Kiyo hasn't expierienced yet.))

Well actually that was just something Chris threw in that makes no sense. guruzeth and Traceh at least were quite plain that it was still broad daylight when they walked into the hotel. So yeah, it's a little off, but no one really gave it a second thought except 3164. That's within the same plotline. Synchronizing time across plotlines? Forget about it. Neither interesting nor necessary.

Note 3 - ((Falcon, if you wanted to come back to life, you should have told us. Now, I have to make up some wierd way to revive you...))

I love that this kid has the balls and/or naivete to talk to Falcon24 in such an indulging tone. That's worth an Awesome Point.

Note 4 - ((How come almost everyone who was in Part I stopped posting...))

Because they have zero interest in saving the world, they were there to party and act weird. It may have slipped past you unnoticed, but there has been a substantial mood shift in the Gathering over these hundreds of posts. A person posting the kind of mild insanity that characterized the first 200 posts would now be ridiculed and possibly attacked for it. The Gathering has become serious business.

That's why there was a long mostly boring slog of 500 posts or so. But now the entertainment value is going to once again spike, because we're about to enter the Gathering's endgame, where most of the posters take themselves way too seriously.

**********

Pikachu and his group, throughly exhausted, managed to get back to the Yoshi.

There, everyone rested until night fell. The battle had totally left everyone forgetting about Randite-infested-Kiyo.

I have to admit, I forgot about him too. And I wasn't even in a battle.

Pikachu was out on the deck locking at the stars, when Kiyo walked up to him. [Hey, Kiyo! Aren't the stars pretty? Hmm... I feel like I should be remembering something...]

Kiyo walked up to Pikachu, and grabbed him. "Stupid rat. I can't believe you forgot about me!"

[Randite! Yikes! Yikes! Help! Help! We've got a Randite problem! Help! Help! Aieeeeee!]

Randite, before Pikachu could draw to much attention, blated Pikachu with his gun and threw him into the ocean.

What the f--- is 'blated'? I assume it was a typo of 'blasted'. Not that a mere gun is going to do any damage to an AC.

Right before he blacked out, Pikachu thought Boy, I seem to be a bully magnet... Oh no! The Sound St.... AIR!

It's almost a guruzeth ploy but then he had to throw in some whining about being bullied. Making it a 3164 ploy.

----------

At Saturn Valley, Falcon's body laid lifeless.

Lay lifeless, unless 3164 means Falcon's body was laying lifeless in the same way that a hen lays eggs. 

All of a sudden, the Apple of Enlightment appeared. "This AC was not meant to die, at least not yet. PSI Super Healing!"

Not once in the history of the world has an AC ever died and stayed dead. Well, making exceptions for pissed-off writers invoking Rocks Fall Everyone Dies and leaving the thread in a huff. Should be obvious why that doesn't count.

All of a sudden, Falcon was revived.

That was pretty much the lamest resurrection in the history of IF. And that's really saying something.

[This message has been edited by Pikachu3164 (edited 05-15-2000).]

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Post #1012, by loid

Randite looked through Pikachu's yellow backpack until
"YES! The sound stone! I serve my master well indead."

Glad to see the old grammar-free loid is back.

Kiyo headed towards Saturn Valley as Tim, Nathan, Shockbird and poryhydron were sleeping, and Pikachu was sleeping with the fishes.

I love this post so much. More posts like this are what IF needs to get fun again. It's short. One thing happens, but it's one (relatively) plot-advancing thing. Something funny is tossed in. Post is over. IF: loid is doin it rite.

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Post #1013, by loid

Randite looked through Pikachu's yellow backpack until
"YES! The sound stone! I serve my master well indead."
Kiyo headed towards Saturn Valley as Tim, Nathan, Shockbird and poryhydron were sleeping, and Pikachu was sleeping with the fishes, and i mean that in a mafia like way, not literly ok?

A double post because loid apparently was unaware posts were editable by their authors. Which explains a lot about the gramers.

I *think* loid was trying to say "don't worry 3164 you're not dead, I didn't just try to kill your AC, I was just trying to be funny." But the funny thing is, if you took a few levels in Reading Comprehension you see loid made the problem worse. "Literally" sleeping would mean just that, sleeping, a condition from which almost everyone recovers. "Sleeping with the fishes" is mafia-speak for being dead of not-quite-natural causes.

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Post #1014, by SirMontyG

Sir waited for a second, and opened his mouth in response. What came out was:


"Is Mel Brooks jewish?"

"How long did it take you to think of that one, Sir?"

"....Three days.." Sir, although a little dejected at his failed joke, rushed headlong into battle side by side with Anthadd.

I wish I could even appreciate the joke for why it failed, but I have no idea what the hell is going on here. Also, did you ever notice no one ever rushes headshort into anything?

*Boss Battle Swirl*
*bupadabaaa!*

Sir and Anthadd engaged Carbon Dog!

This would be the fourth Carbon Dog battle in this thread, I believe.

Anthadd made a quick first attack and clubed Carbon Dog right in the head, causing one of his horns to slice off!

Horns? What the hell have you been drinking? Carbon Dog has ears, this ain't Evil Mani-Mani.

"Wow. Good shot.." Sir said, but it was CD's turn to deliver the pain. Carbon Dog used PSI fire gamma!

Which Carbon Dog can't use. It just breathes fire. You know, because it's made of fire. When you're made of fire you don't need to focus psychic energy to burn people.

Both were totaly scorched by the attack! "Ouch, that was about as hot as Phoenix..alright, my turn! Siddown, boy!" Sir ran and jumped behind CD and swung at the back of his legs. It worked! As a natural reflex, CD fell straight to the ground.
"Hey, Anth, now may not be the time to ask, but if you've got any PSI, now'd be the time to use it!"

I'm pretty sure Anthadd spurned all, or almost all, PSI as a profane thing he would not touch with a 20 foot pole. More at 11.

Post #1015, by Mog116

Mog jumped up and down. "What are you doing?" [Somethings... WROng..fhgeradse.... Randitesdf... PSI Lol!] Mog fell down, then a picture of Randite taking the Sound Stone appeared.Then suddenly, Moggot back up.

I like that. I declare Mog116 'Moggot' from now on. Perfect.

Mog realized the power of PSI Lol!

This thread could use some of that. Here's hoping he uses it liberally.

[Well! We hafta stop him. If I use PSI Lol, he May laugh the randite right off his brain.]

-murk, wanna stop him?:
-Loid, wanna get ridda Randite?:
Well, I found out how!-

Mog and Andrew end up whereever Randite is. Then Mog used PSI Lol. Mog, Andrew and Randite started to laugh hysterically!

'Lol' with that particular capitalization tilts the hell out of me. Ugh.

(Will the Randite leave!? It's all up to Loid)

It would have been a lot simpler just to kill him.

Posts #1006-1010: 15 May 2012

I think this may be a first: I'm posting Annotated Gathering on an anniversary of the actual posts' origin. Today marks 12 years--12 years!!--since these five posts were originally posted. On the nose, too; it's 18:13 as I write these words, and these five posts span from 14:31 to 18:33. It will probably be right around 18:33 when I put this post up.

Post #1006, by Pikachu3164

And Pikachu responded... [My head hurts.]

"Pikachu! You're okay!"

[My head hurts.]

"Yeah, well, we beat the Plague Rat of Doom. Let's go the melody."

[My head hurts.]

Pikachu, Tim, Nathan, and Shock Bird climbed up the ladder to the Magnet Hill. Pikachu and whoever else in my group that doesn't have the melody used their Sound Stones, and then decided to think of a plan later.

Later is always the best time to think of a plan.

They exited the sewer, and met up with Poryhedron.

"Pikachu! How'd it go?"

[My head hurts.]

Your main takeaway from this part is that the Kiddie Klub has agreed, with or without so many words, not to make any further issue of their multiple ACs. I can't remember if guruzeth/PSI322 pushed the issue or not.

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Post #1007, by Chris

After searching for a few minutes, Chris found himself a nice spot to watch the sunrise. A few tourists were on the beach, but other than that, the silence of the ocean only served to accent Chris' thoughtful mood.

It's odd because I don't remember there being any tourists on the beach back when this all got started. Continuity is falling apart! On an IF thread!

He sat on the sand, watching as the darkness turned into the predawn grey, and wondered what he might do today, whether there was anything he could do.

Besides sit around angsting, I presume. Which appears to be the only thing he's good at, or at least comfortable with.

Slowly, the first rays of sunlight crept onto the shore, and then, the sun began to appear on the horizion. At first it was only a tiny sliver, but soon, Chris saw the whole disk rising up into the low sky. The land began to warm up, and more tourists arrived at the beach to enjoy the Summers oceanfront.

I'm not sure if this kind of writing came naturally to him, or if he was consciously working to imitate PSI322's style in his effort to impress her.

After a while, Chris rose from his place, and began brushing the sand off of himself.

Wait, at what point did he end up on the beach? In his last post he was in a hotel room, having distinctly left his designated rock. I'm confused.

He looked around, and walked towards a small dock situated above the water. There, he threw a few handfuls of sand into the water and watched it fade away into the water.

In this sentence you will notice the unnecessarily repeated prepositional phrase in this sentence.

Amusing himself and feeling a bit better, he decided to return to the hotel and find something to do.

It's funny because the way he wrote it is slightly awkward and suggests 'amusing himself' is separate from the sand-throwing. Meaning he did something else after that to, er, amuse himself. ...yeah.

"PSI322 at your service," were the first words he heard as he walked through the doors, and saw Juliana with three other people.

And turned greener than the Incredible Hulk, but without the muscles.

'She looks much better know,' Chris thought to himself as he strolled up to the people he didn't know.

I think he's kind of publicly crying about PSI322's quasi-rejection of him with the 'she looks much better (now that she's in someone else's company)', but it's not helping him at all. Because yeah, that is in fact exactly correct. His highlighting it only highlights his relatively poor position right now.

"Ah, more newcomers. Welcome. I'm sorry there aren't more people here, they're off exploring the inner island, where a battle to save the world is being waged. In the meantime, I'm glad to meet you. I see you've already met PSI322. I'm Chris, the administrator of the boards."

Um. He does realize that he's introducing himself as the administrator (as if he alone was The Man) to freaking guruzeth, right? You know, guruzeth? Supreme Dictator For Life? the guy who, you know, made you an administrator like two months ago?

It's like he aaaaaalmost but not quite grasped what I said a couple Chris posts ago, about direct warfare against guruzeth holding his only sliver of PSI322 hope. He just couldn't quite bring himself to follow it through.

"I'm EBPoo, and this is Traceh." EBPoo said, introducing himself and his companion.

Traceh was guruzeth's companion, actually. Chris switching her to being EBPoo's companion seems to be indicative of Chris having already written off PSI322 and guruzeth as together. That or Chris never read any guruzeth posts, and actually only knows he's there because of PSI322's last post.

"So, you're Chris," the third person said. "Well, here's your chance to meet your boss. I'm guruzeth."

No, Chris! No! Nooooooo! See? He was SO close to getting it right! And then he backs off and acknowledges guruzeth's superiority. I do appreciate, though, that he makes guruzeth come across as a dick. It shows that Chris pretty much thought that's what he was. And he was right, guruzeth truly was a dick.

"Ah. A pleasure, guruzeth, to meet you in person.

This would be a good spot to apologize for pretending to be The Man. You'd think parents would still say sensible things to their kids like "son, if you ever try to pass yourself off to a group of people as The Man, for f---'s sake make sure the actual Man isn't among them first!"

Oh, and good morning, Juliana." Chris decided to say nothing more, lest he offend her by reminding her of last night.

"Well, now that we're all here, what should we do now?" asked Juliana in a friendly tone.

I like how Chris is deciding how Juliana feels for her.

"Well, Traceh and I just finished floating down the Scaraba river and into the ocean, so we could do with some towels and a change of clothes." guruzeth replied.

OK, so he did read guruzeth's posts, and apparently Traceh's to boot. So it was definitely that first thing I said up there.

"I've got something I could get you, guru. Traceh, I'm sure Juliana, I mean, PSI could help you out there." Chris answered, leading the way back to the elevators.

Why did he go out of his way to call her 'PSI' instad of 'Juliana' all of a sudden? Is he being standoffish? I can't really tell.

---

Post #1008, by Mog116

(Uh... KAY! Im sorry bout how I didn't answer. I was to absorbed in Wild Arms2. Yes, it's out, for any of you that care.)

I don't even remember anything called Wild Arms 2 or what it would even be about. Apparently it was a semi-popular series. Wild Arms 1, 3 and 5 are featured in the Let's Play Archive, but 2 is not.

(Uh.. Wait, where am I? I'm not sre because I was too confused of trying to read that last page, and I kept getting everything confused with My Fangame I'm making.) (So, Where am I? Anyone know?)

His attempts to make himself seem busy and important are rather grimacingly pathetic. Also, read the thread yourself you chucklef---.

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Post #1009, by murkkie

(I think we are still in the hole)

I don't know or care what that means. And why is murkkie popping out of nowhere after posting nothing for like a week just to say this to Mog116? Moving right along...

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Post #1010, by Mog116

No, where at the hotel. I'm to lazy and confused to post, though.

I am pretty certain they're not at the hotel. It appears Mog116 has decided to follow the action, which appears to be in team guruzeth right now. Which reminds me, where is Tengu Man? We haven't seen him for a while now.

Posts #1001-1005: 15 May 2000

Post #1001, by Little Yoshi

"Okay Nathan, NOW!" Tim shouted. Tim leapt into the air, and Nathan shot Gaia Beam energy onto the Masamune, and Tim slashed at The Plague Rat of Doom.
"EEEEE!!" The rat said, wincing from the pain.
"Pikachu, are you okay?" The healer of the group(that would be me) asked. Pikachu responded...

Yes, you're remembering correctly: PROD was already dispatched by loid a dozen or so posts ago. Liyoshi is still an insufferable--and I am using the technically pure definition of insufferable here--asshole, but I must say I approve of the newfound brevity of his posts.

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Post #1002, by t0nberry22

"Okay. I'll help. I need that melody anyway." Ton then explained about his Magicant and how Dark Ton was now running loose and would probably head for Lavos.

The poor fool. Lavos does not share power.

"Whoa... That's not good." said Kiyo. "Yeah. Anyway, I need this melody, it's the last one of the original 8 that I need." Ton looked around. "Hey, are you guys done fighting?"

I can't really tell if he's asking that the same way I would--"are you schmucks finally done fighting?"--or the opposite--"is there still a fight going on I can jump into?"

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Post #1003, by Falcon24

(Wait a min, I thought I defeated the Plague Rat of Doom way back in SM.net gathering part 1...well whatever.

Well, Mondo Mole got killed like eight times way back when, and I don't remember you complaining about it.

And I didn't plan on leaving the fic, I was hoping someone would bring me back to life or something :| )

Yes, yes. It's just that everyone else was, well, hoping you were leaving the fic. I'm surprised to see Falcon24 stooping to asking politely for someone to be nice to him, even if it's for nefarious purposes.

---

Post #1004, by  Chris

This is going to be good. guruzeth has arrived; will Chris intercept him before he gets to PSI322?

After hours of staring out his window, Chris still hadn't come up with anything. Of course, he also didn't know what he was trying to think of, so his mind wandered amongst many things.

Uh oh. Sounds like another meandering angsty diatribe.

More than anything else, his mind wondered at the impending question of staying here or leaving the island.

My god. You were angsting over this question like 700 posts ago! And nobody cared then, much less now! Do you ever find anything different to do?

He had been here for a few weeks now, maybe even a month.

It's been about six weeks since the Gathering began. I have not the foggiest idea how much time passed in-story, though. My best guess would be about three weeks.

People at home were probably wondering where he had been for all this time. His friends probably missed him, his family definitely did.

Not to be unduly mean, but based on his various internet posts I have to ponder whether he really had very many friends that would miss him.

On the other hand, life here was a great experience too. Exploring his favorite alternate world, meeting all kinds of people and adventures, and spending time with the people he worked and played with every day had been a very special time for him. Every day, it started to seem like more people might be planning on staying here, where life was totally free, and you could do pretty much anything.

Blah blah blah blah god could we please get on to something new?

"A true paradise." Chris said aloud. These were the first words he had spoken in some time, and the sound briefly startled him.

A true paradise, he thought. He could live his life here, wandering among the lands and spending time with his friends.

I'm sorry, I'm being mean again, but: you don't have any friends. The very best we could say is that you have a friend, PSI322, but since you have not actually spent time in the company of anyone but PSI322... yeah. And your one friend in this loopy fantasy world has tried six times to get the hell away from you.

And yet, this little world was limited by its own boundraies, and could it grow tiring after a few months or years? There was so much more to the real world, that perhaps it might be better to go back.

And so, after hours of staring and thinking, he still hadn't made up his mind about anything, just had contemplated everything. Seeing as how it was going to be dawn soon, Chris decided to go down to the beach and watch it from there.

Thank you for completely wasting my time. I'd say 'our' but I'm probably the only person (except maaaaybe PSI322) that has ever read this entire post.

But yeah, basically this is Chris announcing "no thanks, I'm going to wait for guruzeth to do his thing and then I'll attach myself to it later." You could read it as Chris threatening to leave the story, I suppose, but even at the time I didn't imagine he would do that.

---

Post #1005, by PSI322

Hours earlier, Juliana had come running into her hotel room in tears...she'd flung herself down on the bed and cried for so long, she was surprised that her tear ducts hadn't run dry. Something inside her hurt so badly, though she couldn't quite put her finger on it...but she knew one thing, and that was that the pain was excrutiating.

Ultra-rare PSI322 spelling error. I think that's the second one in this entire thread. It's 'excruciating' with a C. My official count of guruzeth spelling errors stands at 1 right now; it's going to be an interesting duel for the Grammar Guru title.

PSI322 is showing Chris how angst is done, I guess. You don't even have to identify a source of your pain, it's just pain! After all, what is a soul, if not a bowl of pain? A bowl of pain. A bowl of pain.

Not really knowing what was wrong at that time, Juliana had risen from her bed and sat at the windowseat for a long time, scribbling bits of phrases and tangles of words into her notebook in a desperate attempt to create poetry out of chaos.

Usually it just stays chaos, then the writer convinces herself it's great and calls it poetry.

Reading over what she'd done, Juliana actually managed to smile, pleased with her work. Writing a few good poems always made Juliana smile; she was thankful that something around her could do that for her.

Unwritten implication: Because Chris doesn't. Naw, I don't actually think she meant anything by it, but it's fun to pretend she did.

After changing her clothes and taking a Tylenol to soothe a slight headache, Juliana slipped out of her room and locked the door behind her.

She has the room to herself, right? So why is she 'slipping out' of it as if to evade detection by the dastardly ninja staking the place out?

As she proceeded down the hallway towards the stairwell which led to the lobby, she heard the voices of several weary-sounding travelers who seemed to be just around the corner. Not recognizing their voices at all, Juliana quickened her pace, anxious, all of a sudden, to meet these strangers.

This paragraph makes me laugh because there's definitely a clear implication to this one: I cannot WAIT to join up with a group of people, for a Chris buffer. So now Chris, as he knew or should have known, is going to have to join a group pretty much dominated by guruzeth for the duration of this thing, because that's where PSI322 is going to be.

As she came around the bend, Juliana spotted two boys and a girl exiting the elevator on the left side of the hallway.

Boys? I was 18, bucko, thank you very much.

You're right, 'boy' is the appropriate term shut up.

They seemed a little tired; two of them were soaked, or so it appeared to Juliana.

I believe you already observed they seem tired. Or 'weary', if you will. And I'm not sure how one can make a mistake on whether a person is soaked or not. It's usually pretty obvious. 

Regardless, all three were carrying on and laughing a bit as if they were the best of friends.

That's odd, since, while guruzeth and Traceh might be BFFs by now, they both just now met EBPoo for the first time in their lives. And if you're thinking of invoking e-friends, guruzeth and EBPoo were definitely not that.

Overcoming a touch of nervousness, Juliana spoke up. "Well, hello there, strangers," she greeted them. "I do believe I've actually managed to locate three EarthBounders who I haven't met yet!"

I have no idea how I would react if someone actually walked up to me and said that.

The three travelers eyed Juliana and nodded.

You're damn right they did. At least the two males certainly did. It's funny that she threw that in; PSI322 usually picked her words thoughtfully.

"I think you're right," one of the boys said after glancing at her. "Anyway, I'm EBPoo from the forums. Poo from mIRC."

The girl, standing to Poo's left, was the next to introduce herself. "My name's Tracy," she said, "also known as Traceh."

Is 'Traceh' really pronounced in such a way as to be clearly distinguishable from 'Tracy'? I don't know.  

And now, we reach the whole point of this post. Drumroll, please....

The second of the two boys spoke up just then. "And I would be guruzeth."

That's right: guruzeth talks like the Gord. That's how you know he's awesome. 

He paused for a moment. "Hmmm. There aren't too many girls at Starmen.Net, so I ought to be able to guess who you are without too many tries," he began.

Let's see, Traceh's right here... too old to be Luna... too normal to be Umi or Reyna... too old AND too not bats--- insane to be PikaChan... yep, that pretty much means you have to be PSI322.

Juliana smiled. "I'll save you the trouble," she said, grabbing his hand and shaking it. "PSI322, at your service."

I love the language there. It's like he didn't even offer his hand, she just freaking grabbed it. You can't convince me she didn't do that on purpose as a nose-thumbing to Traceh, who you'll recall came up with an assortment of ways to almost make hand-to-hand contact with guruzeth without quite doing so. Which you'll also recall really annoyed PSI322. "Traceh, I like you and you're awesome and I look forward to hanging out. But you see this hand? MINE." And poor Traceh's like "WTF?"

[This message has been edited by PSI322 (edited 05-15-2000).]

Posts #996-1000: 14 May 2000

Post #996, by SirMontyG

(Sorry about that, Tonberry. Man, where's the steel pipe of dishonor when you need it?)

The Steel Pipe of Dishonor was something Tomato made up back in 1999. The idea was that when you get called out (by yourself or someone else) for doing something extraordinarily stupid and/or useless, you hit yourself over the head with the notional steel pipe.

---

Post #997, by  EBPoo


Halfway to Magicant, Poo fell down on his knees again as his head started throbbing once again. "Ow...my head..." Poo muttered to himself. "This can't be happening to me...I am the supreme evil...or am I just a misguided good guy? I can't stand it! I have to do something about it!!!! WAKE UP!" 

That was... er... odd.

Poo awoke in Fire Springs. "Wow. I'm back. BACK! I don't have to be evil or good. Just somewhere in between. I'm going off. Now. But where to go?" 

It appears EBPoo got bored with playing the slapstick bad guy--or probably more accurately, realized no one was paying any attention to him anymore--and decided to drop the shtick. Give a man credit for knowing when it's time to pack it in.

Poo transported to different places and then found a nice, deserted place where he could relax. "This place is great. No trace of humans anywhere!" Suddenly, Poo saw two figures coming from the distance. "Wha? People? What are two people doing here???" Poo looked closer and saw two people. One of which was a girl that he had never seen before. The other was a guy whom Poo knew he had seen before. "It's guru!" Poo shouted as he ran towards the two.

OK, now his sudden change of heart makes sense. You have to remember that guruzeth and PSI322 were both starmen.net celebrities. So Poo alertly realizes they're about to join up and start a plotline together, which is pretty much guaranteed to be the Alpha Plotline of the Gathering. He's making sure to be the first to join it. And he's dropping the evil thing first, probably because he assumes PSI322 and/or guruzeth won't be very fond of it.

---

Post #998, by diospadre

I smiled wide enough to crack my face when I saw diospadre's name come up just now. 

So diospadre is a Gathering newcomer, and he's going to mostly be in the Gathering to the end. He's near the top of the list of Starmen.Net Cool Dude Luminaries From Way Back, and rightly so. I never got along with him, because he was a cool dude and I was a jackass. But you will quickly see that wherever diospadre goes, he brings the funny. Basically he does what Major Asshole does, but better.

"Welcome to Summers." diospadre apathetically greeted the three tired and wet customers. Not only was he bored with working as a bellhop, but as he saw the three stagger into the hotel, he saw they were as young as he was. 

Yeah. So you have to give him credit for the unique entrance, positioning himself as an already existing employee at the Hotel Where It All Began. Also this post innocently marks something never specified before (and actually I think directly refuted before) that from here out will be accepted: that the Hotel Where It All Began is actually in Summers.

And teens don't tip well, its a fact. 

Teens don't tip at all, in my experience. diospadre actually was a hotel bellhop at this time, I believe. Funny, that. Now he's a lawyer and I work at a hotel.

Business had been slowing down as well. He was used to making a couple hundred dollars a day, it comes with the rich tourists to the town. In the past few weeks, though, there were almost no money coming into the town. He looked at his watch. It was only 4:30. 7 and a half hours to go. Another boring day. Oh well.

Pay attention, class, because this is how you do an introductory post right. Put yourself where the action you want to horn into is, introduce yourself innocuously, then end the post and wait for a chance to see what develops. If you're cool about it, it will probably come when someone invites you along for whatever world-saving hijinks ensue, but if not you can just tag along.

[This message has been edited by diospadre (edited 05-14-2000).]

[This message has been edited by diospadre (edited 05-14-2000).]

Yeah, he edited the message twice, and neglected to delete the first editing tag.

---

Post #999, by Anthadd


"No, I've got to say I'm not interested in such folly. I'd rather get all the melodies and see if I can get back to the actual gathering. It may bring on ennui, but I'm all but ready to settle back in to a natural life on the island until school starts anew."
"That so?" Sir said.

Anthadd's responding to something Major Asshole said when he crashed Anthadd's plotline a couple dozen posts ago. And no, I'm not going to explain what 'ennui' means to you. Look it up yourself, you lazy jackass.

By this time, they'd reached the Shining Spot's plateau.
"Are you ready to challenge Carbon Dog?" Anthadd queried.

Notice that Anthadd instantly assumes Major Asshole is now in Team Anthadd and will render assistance as such.

Sir waited for a second, and opened his mouth in response. What came out was:

Awesome. I don't know what it will be, but I predict it will be awesome.

---

Post #1000, by PSIOsman

Drat. I was hoping Post 1000 would be by somebody important.

"AAAAA!" Osman yelled as the Randite smashed him with its enormous claw. He did one of those cool quick recoveries like in Smash Brothers. Alan tried his best, but neither his PSI or his board were damaging it.

That opening quote is actually a clever code. See this page for more information.

Siris fired a beam at the face of the Randite. It took the hit easily, and turned toward Osman. Osman concentrated on his Scimitar. It started glowing again. He swung it, and fired a spinning blast of PSI energy. When it hit the Randite, it took a step back. It then continued on as if nothing happened. They realized that they would all have to use their abilities in unison if they wished do defeat the Randite.

The Power of Friendship really only impresses the reader if the reader cares. Here, the reader does not care. Why should we care about your battle against the Randite, Osman?

Siris called to Alan.

"Alan! Use your Tsunami attack!"

Does Alan even have any other attacks? It doesn't seem like he does. So why would he need to be reminded to use the only attack he knows? Basically Osman is saying, "Alan, get off your lazy ass and DO SOMETHING, dammit!"

Alan summoned a massive wall of water. Just as it hit the Randite, Siris quickly chanted a spell. 

Shouldn't he have started chanting the spell at some point shortly before the massive wall of water hit the Randite? I think usually you have to at least do a little bit of chanting before your spell gets invoked. I presume he's casting some spell to protect himself, as one presumes an incoming tsunami would be more dangerous to him than to the Randite. But then, the Randite isn't an AC. 

He continued chanting, as the night air became extremely cold. Glowing winds swirled around the Randite. Siris, still chanting, brought his fist toether. 

Remind me sometime to name a character in one of my fantasy books 'Toether'.

The winds seemed to collide into each other, with the Randite in the middle. What had been stone was now ice. Osman leaped forward, and slashed at the frozen figure. From the point of impact, a crack formed. It became larger, and branched out more, until the frozen Randite crumbled.

But, again, we still have no idea if or why this is a good thing. There has to be a point or no one will want to waste their time reading your battle scene.

"Whew," said Osman. "Let's go see about Sir now."

They did not notice that the pieces of the Randite had liquefied, and were now re-forming...

Just in case you were foolish enough to think that battle couldn't possibly get any more pointless.

(Geez! I'm writing these all by myself! Gauntlet Wizard, Al, care to step in?)

Yes. Yes you are. Did it ever occur to you that perhaps that's because you are the only person who cares?

------------------
You may address me as His Majesty Emperor PSIOsman I.

I think I'll address you as Insufferably Boring PSIOsman instead. Will that work for you?

Posts #991-995: 14 May 2000

Post #991, by TsuramiSea


In Fourside, TsuramiSea explored and tried to find out how to reach Chommo. 

You probably forgot and I don't blame you for it, but: I'm pretty sure 'Chommo' was the word Tengu Man came up with to describe the non-Eagleland area of EarthBound. Yes, I know it's stupid, don't look at me like that.

He fought some Extra Cranky Ladies, but they weren't as generous as the Cranky Ladies in Twoson. 

I don't even know what this means. Extra Cranky Ladies are worth a lot more money than their more primitive sisters, and drop Handbag Straps at the same rate. So I can't tell what makes them less generous.

However, after getting some extra money, TsuramiSea bought a bicycle helmet for protection. 

Don't laugh. Oversized coins provide a ton of protection in EarthBound, and I don't even know where you carry them on your person. You'd think on a rope around your neck, but then for most of the game you're already wearing a pendant, so who knows?

Then, he looked around for some kind of ship headed for Chommo. He found out that many cargo barges and cruises went to Chommo (mostly to Summers, but Scaraba also). 

Yeah, okay. At least I correctly remember what 'Chommo' is, besides a very stupid word.

TsuramiSea decided to STOWAWAY on a large cargo ship. 

I don't have the foggiest idea why he had to capitalize STOWAWAY, and we will never find out. It was probably a long-forgotten inside joke. Or maybe it's a reference to some famous anime or something that you all know about but I've never heard of.

He felt a little nervous, because it was against the law. But, he wanted to get to Chommo very badly and didn't have enough money for a cruise. Besides, he thought he could find a good hiding place. Tsurami boarded a barge to Summers carrying various fresh vegetables, and nestled himself tightly between a group of close-set crates. 

Well, that one definitely goes in the "didn't think your cunning plan all the way through" file. This ship will be at sea for, minimum, half a day, possibly as much as two days. He has no idea how uncomfortable it's going to get staying wedged in that position, in that spot, for 30 freakin' minutes, much less two days. And that's without even considering what most of us must do at least a few times every two days. 

At last, the boat set off, and TsuramiSea headed off for Summers, not knowing what to expect....

---

Post #992, by Traceh

guruzeth was awaken by a pecking noise and an 'Ooof! Get AWAY from me you mindless creature!" He sat up and looked around, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

Couldn't have said it better myself, Traceh. Wait... what do you mean she wasn't saying that to guruzeth? 

Come to think of it, isn't that exactly what PSI322 has been wanting to say to Chris for 900 posts now and has been to polite to? Pretty much verbatim, right?

A few feet away was Tracy, shooing away some strange bird. It finally got the hint and flew off and Tracy turned to him.

I guess we won't be naming that bird 'Chris', then.

"Ah, finally awake? I would probobly still be sleeping if it wasnt for that squaker, and the prickle of this bush.

Apparently both of those things woke her up at the exact same instant. I do like to think she was making fun of the stupidity of sleeping in/under a bush.

guru stood up and helped Tracy to her feet and they brushed the sand off their clothes.

It's like 99.96% that Traceh not specifying they each brushed the sand off their own clothes was accidental. But given the general tone of this particular arc, it would have been much better for all of us if she had. I would start tallying instances of guruzeth and Traceh making physical contact the way I did with loid typos--it's been about a consistent 3-5 times per post for a while now--but what's the point? loid typos didn't make us feel vaguely uncomfortable for reading them.

"It's just starting to warm up," he said. "Why dont we test the water?"

They picked up their belongings and strolled towards the bank of the river looking for a good spot to ease into.

"Are you sure about this?" Tracy said. "It could be more dangerous then we would expect."

You ran headlong into a cursed pyramid without hesitating for a second--with guruzeth--but you're having second thoughts about swimming?

"Pretty sure," said guru. "After all, you do know how to swim, right?"

Tracy flashed him a look and slowly waded into the water, waist deep, guruzeth folloing suit.

Traceh really needs to be more careful with choosing her verbs. That's all I'm saying.

She floated her backpack while tieing a cord from it to her wrist.

An excellent plan, assuming your backback is both waterproof and watertight. And assuming you don't mind the substantial risk you run into some rapids and get strangled to death by the cord.

After a few deep breaths and 'good luck's, they released the grip on the rocks at the shallow bottom and let the current take them.

They held tight to eachother's arms

Oh god.

I'm honestly not even sure how to picture what she means. I'm pretty sure she was envisioning hands-on-forearms, but even that isn't helping me view this as an innocent survival tactic. Either the river is relatively calm, in which case the arm-holding is unnecessary (and then presumably a stand-in for hand-holding), or it's relatively active, in which case it's insufficient. If they'd known what they were doing they would have grabbed a log or something else that floats and shared it; that's their best shot at staying together if the river is tumultuous. So either way this really comes across as approaching Romance Rule boundaries. I still think Traceh was clueless of all that and just had an impressive talent for picking unfortunate wording. But I distinctly remember PSI322, at the time, strongly disagreeing with that assessment and being very irritated at this particular part of this particular post.

I don't know, man. guruzeth wasn't worth fighting over.

and floated down the river for what seemed like only minutes before the mouth of the river started to widen. "Hold on, okay? I wouldnt want just one of us to make it," guruzeth spat through the water. Not that Tracy heard more then a mumble with her plugged ears.

There's this thing called 'treading water' that they really should have learned before they came up with their river-semi-swimming plan-type thing. Or does she mean Tracy actually applied earplugs before getting in the water? If so, I'm at a loss for why she wasn't wearing them the whole time, to muffle guruzeth's voice.

Up ahead the river emerged into the ocean and Tracy became somewhat hystarical, splashing a bit and shaking (not just from the water temperature).

I have no idea why they didn't simply swim to shore and emerge from the river as soon as they saw the shore coming up. Assuming rivers worked that way, which they usually don't. But hey, this is IF and these are teenagers that don't really know anything about rivers and don't really care. But since you care: people got the idea of putting barges on rivers because it was a fast way to ship piles of stuff. Not because swimming downstream is a better way to reach the ocean than walking. Rivers wind and twist a lot (easily negating whatever speed advantage over walking they might have offered), and frequently run into things like rapids and waterfalls that are generally fatal to swimmers. But hey, ACs.

They could see waves far off in the distance which neared and were apon them in no time flat. Despite all fighting to stick together they were separated by the waves, each watching the other float off into oblivion.

Dang, I was hoping for more detail as to how exactly they fought to stick together. Sounds hot.

That's not really how oceans work, either, especially at the mouths of major rivers. (Major rivers are the only kind that run directly into oceans, generally at deltas.) But I'm probably boring you with pointing out what to you is probably obvious.

The next thing guruzeth remembered was being shook by someone.

"guru! Are you okay!? guru wake up....oh I hope you arent dead or something!

I really fail to see how that would be a bad thing. I keep telling you that you should have left him to his fate in the Pyramid.

Come on, wake up!" Tracy shouted as though to penatrate his sleep-like state.

Penet... okay, yeah. You see what I mean about Traceh and picking unfortunate wording.

"Hey, we are so lucky we washed up on the same beach, or even washed ashore at all!"

"...Huh?" he asked, dazed. "What happened? where are we?"

Great opportunity to pull a Calvin's Dad on him and she's going to whiff on it.

"We washed up on the shore. Look over there, I think we're back at the mainland beach that everyone started out on. If Im correct, the hotel should be just over that hill," Tracy exclaimed. "Should we go back yet, or not?"

Just in case you missed that, they not only sort-of-swam downriver but they crossed the ocean into wherever the hotel was (it definitely wasn't in Scaraba).

You know what to me is really interesting? That Traceh, not guruzeth, took the initiative to get them back to the hotel where they know PSI322 is waiting for guruzeth's arrival. Maybe she knew that was their inevitable destination and resigned herself to it without wangsting on and on the way Chris is doing (Traceh is actually a cool enough person to have done this). Or maybe she actually secretly has had enough of the soloing with guruzeth and wanted to hang out with someone else for a change. We would hope that's the case.

Either way, that concludes the guruzeth-Traceh arc, also known as the "way too much touching for anyone's comfort arc", and we are about to enter the guruzeth-PSI322 arc, also known as the "still today the all time record holder for angst and general pissiness arc". Fun times are ahead, my friends!

---

Post #993, by t0nberry22



(Sir, please. It's Dark TON, not Tom. So please stop callin' him that!)

Yeah, but I LOL every time I see 'Dark Tom'. Harriet Beecher Stowe must be turning around in her grave like a basting turkey.

Dark Ton had reached the Huge Lavos Shell in Saturn Valley. "At last..." He said. "Finally, a chance to show my TRUE power!" 

Is it really true power if you have to go out of your way to locate a large MacGuffin to activate it?

With that, DT started glowing...


Meanwhile, Ton had made it to the sewers in Fourside. "Alright Ton... Here I go!" Ton climbed down into the sewers. After about 20 minutes of trudging thru sludge, Ton saw a group of people fighting a giant rat...
(And PSI, techically DT isn't another AC, just a evil side of my AC. Plus, he's interesting.)

If "I think he's interesting" was a valid cause for exemption from the AC rule, Tengu Man would have 130 ACs in this thread by now. Not gonna fly, kid.

The "DT isn't another AC" thing is at least an attempt at a semi-logical argument, but it miserably fails. Dark Ton fits every criteria of a second AC: only you can control its thoughts and motives, and it can be in a separate plotline from your primary ACs. That's an AC. Sorry. And I am 100% serious when I say that if he'd gotten away with that, it would be about ten posts before Tengu announced that there are twelve Dark Tengus, each one representing a subtly different part of his personality. And then twelve more Dark Roll Busters (you don't seriously think you've seen the last of Roll Buster, do you? Ho ho ho).

---

Post #994, by loid


"Pikachu, can you hear me? Come on! Gotta wake up now."
"Lemme try Tim, PIKACHU! BUTTERFREES HERE AND HE BROUGHT EXPRESSO AND PEANUT CHEESE BARS!.... I dont think he's waking up. Poor little guy."

I have little doubt loid was intentionally giving Liyoshi a middle finger with that exchange, wherein Loyoshi just shakes him and can't wake him up. loid is in my top five posters for sure right now.

"Is, is he..."
"No, he's still breathing which is always a good sign, maybe the melody will heal him."

I wouldn't worry about him too much, I mean, he's an AC, any moment now a plot contrivance will come along and he'll be fit as a fiddle.

Just then Ton noticed all of them there
"Kiyo? That you?"
"Ton?"
"Hey Kiyo, do you two know each other?"
"Whats it look like. Ton, we got kindof a problem here."
Kiyo explained to Ton all about Randite and the battle with the Plague rat and his new allies Pikachu, Poryhydron, shockbird, Tim and Nathan.

Actually, not only am I not going to sneer at loid's lack of exposition skills, but I wish a lot of published novelists that also lack exposition skills would follow loid's lead. You could save a lot of pages just writing "Dirk explained to Jigger everything that was going on from pages 114 through 198."

Ton said

I didn't miss anything; that's where the post ends. loid's not an ellipsis kind of guy, you see.

---

Post #995, by guruzeth

It took guruzeth over an hour to get a post up making sure he gets to the hotel. That's longer than I was expecting. He was probably busy being a jackass in #earthbound.

As he gradually returned to full consciousness, guruzeth fell into a violent coughing spasm as he expelled all the water he'd taken on. 

guruzeth showing off that he watched a TV show once that explained what tends to happen when water gets places it's not supposed to go. And also acting injured.

You can tell that I have always, from the dawn of IF, been annoyed by rampant AC God Mode. Unfortunately I did the usual teenage thing and overreacted. The result is what you see, guruzeth hardly ever writing a post without his AC getting injured.

When he'd recovered, he said, "The hotel is just over the hill, you said?"

This is, of course, the very same beach where guruzeth and Traceh first met up and started their wacky adventure. For all guruzeth's technical excellence, the truth is Traceh was a better writer.

"Yeah, I think it is anyway," said Tracy. "We can go look... are you OK?"

guruzeth coughed a little again and dried the tears in his eyes. "Yeah," he said, rising to his knees and then his feet. "Yeah, let's go see if we're where we think we are, and if there's anyone at the hotel if it's really there."

You'll remember how the hotel was derelict and abandoned for hundreds and hundreds of posts, and within 15 posts of PSI322's showing up there guruzeth also appears there. This was no accident.

The two of them trudged side by side through the sand, 

Awwwww.

and then through the grass that began growing in spots and gradually grew thicker. The hill was farther away than they'd thought; after about a half hour they finally eclipsed the top of it, and off a thousand yards or so in the distance they saw a large building.

He probably was thinking of that scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail where they keep flipping back and forth, for like two full minutes, between the same five second cut of John Cleese running toward the camera and a random redshirt guard peering carefully at him.

"Is that the hotel?" asked guruzeth, peering into the fading night.

"I think it is," said Tracy, "but it looks deserted. Let's go check it out, maybe someone's there!" 

"Is that a desert?" "I think it is, but it looks dry. Let's go check it out, maybe there's water there!" 

Quickening their pace a little, the two began walking toward the building they had seen, hoping someone they knew was merely a few minutes away...

Yeah. Someone.

Posts #986-990: 14 May 2000

Post #986, by SuperSpeedy/ Mankey Boy

(You mean I must one of my ACs? AWW! I can't! It'll be too sad!)

He's so devastated by this dire turn of events that he couldn't even bring himself to type "get rid of", or however such a phrase forms in his hyperactive young mind.

---

Post #987, by Pikachu3164

((SuperSpeedy, just come up with a wierd way to get rid of either Poryhedron or Shock Bird, like Poryhedron went home, or Poryhedron found an Anti-Magnet Spray, or whatever.))

3164 wholly misses the point. SuperSpeedy can no more function without Poryhedron and Shock Bird than he can function without a liver and kidneys. They're part of him, you know what I mean? It's just cruel of you to even suggest such a thing.

**********

Seeing as I'm, like a lot of people here, are to lazy to write a long, epic tale of how Tim, Nathan, Shock Bird, and Pikachu beat the Plague Rat of Doom,

You've got that right, brother.

I'll just say that they were pounding on the Plague Rat's last ounce of HP. If anyone else in my group decides to write an epic tale, go ahead.

Please don't tempt Liyoshi. Please. Don't. PLEASE.

[We're almost done with this rat!]

We can only shake our heads in sadness that this was said by 3164, rather than about him. We were only a preposition away!  

Also, as best I recall, 3164 himself was the last person to bring up PROD. Always a fair indicator no one else in your own group gives a s***. But then again, that was only nine posts ago, so he's probably just bored and wanting to power through this.

All of a sudden, however, the Plague Rat pounced on Pikachu, SMAAAAASHING him.

Pikachu could here Shock Bird calling out to him before he blacked out...

Wait, weren't you just saying Shock Bird needs to take a hike? I'm confused.

---

Post #988, by loid

"NOOOOOOO! Pikachu!"
"Thats it! take this rat!"
Kiyo took one of Randites guns (A dual Neutron laser to be exact) and in his rage blasted away at the plague rat and just about everything nearby taming it.

Yeah... OK. Sure, kid, whatever you want. I can almost feel, 12 years later, Tengu getting annoyed, but shrugging it off and saying what the hell. As well he might; who really cares how someone chooses to manifest AC God Mode? Might as well just let it pass.

"Pikachu, can you hear me?.....

---

Post #989, by Gauntlet Wizard

"Undaunted!" Siris exclaimed. "The Randite statue may be infallible!"

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

"It can't be!" Osman replied. "We must defeat it!"

Looks like excellent logic to me. The Randite statue cannot be invincible (the word Gauntlet tried and failed to come up with a more exotic synonym for). Why? Because we must defeat it. Because we must defeat it, it obviously follows that it cannot be undefeatable. Q.E.D. At least if you're an AC.

With that, Osman leapt toward the Randite statue with his scimitar. The mighty PSI blade was aimed directly at the center of the statue, where a human heart would be. The scimitar hit! ...And left a small dent in the stone statue. Two pebbles fell from the dent.
"Dude." Alan commented. "That, like, can't be a good thing."

Why? It's two pebbles. They're not very likely to hurt you.

Siris uttered a few seemingly nonsensical words.

Remember, swearing was very strictly forbidden on this forum.

A film of barely noticeable light surrounded the three friends.
"I casted a shield spell. It should protect us from some damage." Siris explained.
And the group went on battling...

And the audience went on not giving a crap.

---

Post #990, by Chris

You know what's coming up right here, right? If you're new here and you don't, I'll tell you: what's coming up here is awesome.

Chris stared a long time after Juliana had left.

And no one has the slightest doubt what at.

A few moments after she had run off, he had been hit with such a wall of emotion that he fell on the ground. Normally, he was very good at controlling himself, and he never had been physically knocked over by a thought (or series of thoughts, as the case was).

Oh yeah. Really good at controlling himself. That's why he's been doing the same things over and over throughout this thread like a broken CD.

But now, he felt a new kind of emotion, a new kind of pain.

What is a soul, if not a bowl of pain? A bowl of pain, a bowl of pain.

He felt a sense of loss. Not the kind when you lost some worldly good, or when you lost some distant relative that you hardly ever knew. Instead, he was hit by a loss of something far more precious. Someone who he cared about, and someone who cared for him.

I know, it's like he's trying to write a spectacularly eloquent eulogy. I have to give this to teenagers, they really do try their best to wring all the possible angst out of their rambling, semi-coherent declarations of pain.

Chris felt as though he was at least partially responsible for the reason Juliana suddenly had started crying, and run off.

Well, yeah. Generally if someone runs away from you crying, you are more than just partially responsible for it. And if this is the sixth time that someone has flagrantly attempted to get far away from you? Yeah, dude. Sorry to break it to you, but you're at least partially responsible here, no point denying it.

'She must have been longing for home, with her friends, her family, her life.

I guess that's one theory of what she's longing for. I have a different theory.

And yet, she's become attached to me.

Yes, there is no doubt she has. We all know that the normal, healthy human reaction when one becomes attached to someone is to try to get far away from them. Over and over and over again.

We've shared adventure together, we traveled together.

He does realize that he alone has been writing all this "adventure" that they have allegedly been "sharing", right? And that as soon as PSI322 returned from a lengthy hiatus the very first thing she did is the same as the very last thing she did before said hiatus, namely: try to get far away from Chris?

She must be feeling horrible, torn between life here, and life there.'

I have to once again confess to you that the whole "I miss my real-life family and friends, I can't decide if I want to stay here in fantasyland forever or go back to my humdrum life forever" thing as a stand-in for Chris and PSI322's stalker-stalkee relationship is so stupid it makes me want to drill through my own eyeballs.

And then Chris had another thought. 'Maybe I'm kidding myself. Maybe she doesn't care for me at all, beyond a simple friendship, and I've diluted reality with some crazy notion of happiness.'

And here comes the angst, ladies and gentlemen!

I have to admit he has a point here, happiness is both crazy and a dilutant of reality. (I'm also pretty sure I just made up the word 'dilutant'.)

Chris wanted to know whether he was right or wrong, but at the same time, he knew that Juliana had to be alone for a while.

On the other hand, the awkward teenage tendency toward Check-Yes-or-No makes me want to slap teenagers everywhere around with a live and angry ferret. Spoilers: if that question ever even crosses your mind, the answer is, you are correct, she does not want you.

'She went up to her room in the hotel; there's no way she could have left Summers. In the meantime, I'll go up to mine, and I won't disturb her until she's ready to come out. And if she wants me to take her straight to the edge of the island to leave, then I'll do that. Even if it means I lose her forever.'

Beta-type guys everywhere who have been trying for centuries to pull the friends-then-sex routine are nodding their heads and saying 'well played, demonstrating to her that you really care about her, so much that you're willing to sacrifice your own happiness for hers! That always works!'

Yeah, they've been doing that for centuries, but it never works. Never. Works. Sorry, but nice guys really do finish last (and Chris miserably failing to take PSI322's attention from Asshole Deluxe guruzeth is a good demonstration). Women are usually not turned on by "I will do anything for you, you are my entire world" romantic behavior from guys. They enjoy it, but it's a different pleasure center of their brain from what arouses them. You enjoy playing World of Warcraft, right? But not at all for the same reasons you enjoy porn, right? Similar concept.

I'm not going to discuss this particular concept much more because I'm afraid of this blog showing up on PUA searches, but high-value women (PSI322, for instance, was the highest-value female on this website in 1999-2000) look for high-value men, which is mostly measured by dominating other men (guruzeth was one of the most dominant males on this website in 1999-2000).

So Chris declaring his sacrificial devotion is not helping his cause, it's hurting it. Chris throughout the Gathering is operating under the assumption that the worst thing he can do is insult guruzeth in any way, because PSI322 would be offended by it and would never speak to Chris again. That's a possible/probable outcome, yes, but what Chris missed was: in reality his only chance, however slim, of winning PSI322's heart lay in attacking guruzeth directly, challenging him for supremacy, calling him out for bulls*** (and we have already seen guruzeth providing plenty of bulls*** he could have been called out for) and then try to provoke guruzeth into counterattacking. And since guruzeth was, of course, renowned for metaphorically using the Death Star to kill a cockroach, a smoother man than Chris could have exposed guruzeth for a petty asshole (which he was) and himself a cool guy and innocent victim, and turned PSI322 against him. 

A few years after these events (and after guruzeth's assholery had finally turned PSI322 against him all on its own) SimonBob, a much smoother man than Chris, effectively drove guruzeth out of the EarthBound community for good by doing exactly the above and playing it well. 

OK, I'm finished with that point and won't harangue about it again. I'll go back to sniping at Chris with snide comments now.

And, having tried unsuccessfully to resolve his conflict, he went upstairs to his room, and spent the whole night staring out at the ocean, thinking about home and Juliana.

I have little doubt this is, in reality, exactly what he did. Bear in mind a full day (23 hours, to be exact) passed between PSI322's last post and this one. No doubt Chris spent most of the night and all of the day moping and trying to decide how to best communicate to PSI322 that he really cares about her. 

And hey, I'll be fair to Chris here: at least he had balls enough to try. Sure he's doing everything exactly wrong, but he's inexperienced, and it takes balls to try to steal the forum supreme dictator's girlfriend. I have it on good authority that, before getting into said e-lationship, that very forum dictator, for all the macho he threw around on the internet, spent three years in high school pining for a particular girl in the same way Chris is pining for PSI322, and never once saying a word to her about it. Chris's desire for PSI322's affection at least drove him to try, dammit. 

OK, I'll go back to making fun of Chris now. Promise.

[This message has been edited by Chris (edited 05-14-2000).]